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Why an AMBER Alert was not issued when a child was taken from a Baker home on Monday
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BATON ROUGE - State Police said an AMBER Alert was not issued for a 4-month-old baby taken on a wild and violent two-state run from the law Monday because the child and its father were within sights of authorities relatively quickly.
Eric Smith shot and killed his ex-girlfriend and her nephew in Baker Monday around lunchtime and fled East Baton Rouge with Smith’s 4-month-old child. Less than two hours later, authorities had Smith spotted. After an attempt was made to stop the vehicle he was driving, Smith took authorities on a police chase into Mississippi where he was later shot and killed.
The 4-month-old was injured in the situation and taken to a hospital. For the latest on the child’s condition, click here.
Louisiana maintains a strict AMBER Alert policy, an attempt to keep alerts to a distinctive approach so, when issued, are more easily noticed.
State Police have said on its AMBER Alert website, the notification system is not used in every situation or for custodial conflicts.
When asked by WBRZ Monday about whether an AMBER Alert could have been issued, State Police said the suspect and child were already located by the time troopers had processed the request to issue an alert. State Police handles the AMBER Alert system in Louisiana.
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